Get the latest tech news

Why is this hard?

This article is part of the series JEG2's Questions. In a previous article of this series I talked about how we must remain ever vigilant against what is making it into our code. I talked about the need to always analyze the cost of everything we are agreeing to carry forward. But there are two sides to every coin. Now we need to talk about when you need to fight to add more code, process, and infrastructure. This is the second concern that I always try to keep in my thoughts.

If a subsystem contains a bunch of technical debt but is out of the way of mainline development, never needs modifying, and serves its intended purpose, it's not a problem you need to spend energy on. A complex decision tree in a central router that needs tweaking as we add each new capability to the system is putting a heavy tax on the developers. It pays to listen and log away the things that you hear, but to really focus on taking action on the subjects that keep coming up or that are about to be relevant for upcoming needs.

Get the Android app